State's Old Mills Generate New Interest

Old Mills Generate New Interest

EAST HADDAM — On a cold November day, Roaring Brook was slate blue against a stark backdrop of leafless hardwoods. The stream riffled briskly by Parker's Mill, just across from Sheepskin Hollow Road.

The mill has been quiet for 61 years now, a relic of when just about every Connecticut stream of any size was punctuated with small mills grinding corn and other grains, cutting timber, or finishing homespun cloth.

"This time of year they would be going full blast," said Charles Farrow, a schoolteacher and a student of early Connecticut mill sites.

In the 19th century, East Haddam families brought their corn to be ground at the mill named for Henry Parker, and built in 1835 by his grandfather-in-law, Elderkin Chester. That cornmeal became the foundation of many a Thanksgiving dinner dish.

"They would have used it to stuff the turkey, they would have used it to thicken all kinds of sauces and soups, they obviously would have made breads out of it, their corn breads, and Indian pudding," Farrow said.

Perhaps the surprising thing is that some mills, such as this one, survived into the 20th century, grinding corn between millstones powered by nothing more than rushing water.

There is something of a boomlet of interest in them these days.

In Burlington, for example, efforts are under way to save the Schwarzmann Mill, a four-story 18th-century mill used over the centuries to make lumber, grain, cider and shingles. Similarly, a nonprofit foundation has been created to help restore a century-old sawmill on the East Aspetuck River in the village of New Preston, in Litchfield County.

And, here and there, there are inquiries about converting an old mill for hydroelectric power generation, including the site of the old Kirby Mill in Mansfield.

"Hydropower is certainly a growing interest," said John W. Shannahan, director of the Connecticut Historical Commission, though, he cautioned, there are many regulatory and legal questions to resolve before a mill actually is converted.

Parker's Mill is like so many others, with a hand-built stone aqueduct carrying water to the mill from the edge of a small dam across a stream. In the earliest days, the water would have powered a water wheel that turned the millstones. Later, the water wheel was replaced by a turbine to turn the stones.

The milling stones were adjustable, and one miller might be known for a grind that lent itself especially well to a pudding or some other dish. "These people, I'm sure, had a holiday grind they produced," Farrow said.

Parker's Mill, barn red with wide chestnut floorboards, is a still-pleasing complement to a country landscape -- though most other mill sites today are little more than stone foundations and crumbling dams.

"Like anything else, when they have outlived their usefulness, they sit there and decay," Shannahan said. "It's a kind of resource that was very prominent in most communities."

Farrow has found 20 old mills within a 10-mile radius of Parker's Mill. "Every little stream in the lower Connecticut River Valley ... had four or five mills," he said. Some have been reduced to little more than a telltale mound of rocks.

So important was a grist mill, that 17th-century New England settlements often would give a miller land and a share of the flour he milled in return for setting up shop.

"They are critical to the development of an agricultural grain-based economy in all frontier areas," said William Cronon, a professor of history at Yale University. "So, even before towns, you expect mills to pop up."

Once there was a mill, agricultural development was further fueled.

Farrow began his search for the old mills four years ago after finding a handmade stone dam on Hemlock Valley Brook, which passes through his property in East Haddam. He restored that dam, and, his curiosity aroused, began exploring other streams in the area.

"I put on a pair of hip boots and I just began to walk in the water. And I began to find all these places," he said.

"Then I got to the point where I could predict where they'd be. It was almost like you could smell them ... these people had a vision for how they would do it. They wanted to get maximum energy from the source while putting in as little effort as possible. They were economical."

Students of Connecticut's past have always found the old mills interesting historical artifacts. Farrow thinks some of them may have a future -- as small-scale hydroelectric power producers.

"It's not going to be a universal solution, and it's not going to work everywhere," he said. "But the power is there. And it could cut down on pollution."

The old dams took their toll in the migration of some fish species, and the change in flows altered stream ecology. But, in many cases, the dams remain anyway.

"I think it is doable, but it would call for people doing things a little bit different," he said. Many of the sites are privately owned and would require the cooperation of a landowner. Wetland regulations might have to be changed.

Farrow, an English teacher, is working with his eighth-grade students at Haddam-Killingworth Middle School investigating an old mill on the school property in Haddam. Students read about the old mills, including diary accounts kept by mill owners generations ago.

With the help of an $800 grant from the Rockfall Foundation, Farrow and students are exploring energy production from that mill, which remains sound enough that it could be put to work again -- in the manner that Parker's Mill once was. "Very simple, very small," he said.